Four of five Anaheim City Council members on Tuesday declined to support a resolution calling for an end to deportations and the legal protection of undocumented immigrants without serious criminal histories. “To ask a president to ignore a law, to ignore an oath that he took, I don't think it's good for a mayor to do that,” Mayor Tom Tait said. The resolution proposed by Councilman Jordan Brandman was similar to one adopted in December by the Los Angeles City Council and echoed a letter sent that same month to President Obama by 29 House Democrats.

WASHINGTON - With their hopes for broad legislation to overhaul immigration policies all but dead for the year, advocates have turned quickly to a new target: Pushing President Obama to take executive action to ease deportations of immigrants in the country illegally. In a coordinated, aggressive and sharp-elbowed campaign, leaders who stood behind the White House not long ago as the president called immigration reform his top second-term priority are now attacking Obama for not doing enough on his own. Dismissing Obama's insistence that his hands are tied by the law, advocates plan to pile on until he relents -- as he did once before in the run-up to an election.

Three young immigrants who entered the United States illegally as children are in Mexico and will try to cross the border back into the U.S. as part of a campaign to reduce deportations. At the border, the three will ask to be admitted legally, but they risk being detained and barred from rejoining their families in the U.S. The campaign is being organized by the National Immigrant Youth Alliance . "I know you're going to think that I'm crazy for doing this, for leaving the U.S., for coming to Mexico," Lizbeth Mateo said in a YouTube video from Oaxaca, Mexico.

WASHINGTON - The number of immigrants deported from the country decreased this year for the first time since President Obama came into office, reflecting the impact of new policies intended to focus enforcement on immigrants with criminal backgrounds. Both sides in the highly contentious debate over immigration policy seized on the annual figures released Thursday by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Advocates for immigrants, who have repeatedly criticized the administration for the high levels of deportations under Obama's tenure, said the approximately 369,000 immigrants deported in the 12 months ending Sept.

Latinos by a 2-1 margin disapprove of how President Obama is handling deportations of illegal residents, but by an even larger margin, Latino voters favor him over Mitt Romney, according to a new survey by the Pew Hispanic Center. The Obama administration has presided over a record number of deportations of illegal residents, a policy that has drawn extensive criticism from Latino leaders. By 59% to 27%, Latinos — citizens and noncitizens — say they disapprove of how the administration is handling the issue, according to the poll, released Wednesday.

WASHINGTON - Under orders by President Obama to enforce immigration laws "more humanely," Homeland Security officials are focusing on at least two major policy changes that would slow the pace of deportations of immigrants in the U.S. illegally. But the White House has tentatively rejected proposals to expand an Obama administration program to allow the parents of young people who were brought to the country illegally to stay. Officials said Friday that the changes under review would effectively stop most deportations of foreigners with no criminal convictions other than immigration violations, and focus enforcement efforts instead mostly at those charged or convicted of felony crimes or who pose more of a threat to public safety.

The Los Angeles City Council approved a resolution Wednesday calling on President Obama to halt most deportations of immigrants. In a move led by Councilman Gil Cedillo, who represents a heavily immigrant district on the city's Northeast side, the council urged Obama to a current program that allows certain undocumented young people to stay in the country legally. Cedillo said Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program should be expanded to protect "all immigrant families who are not engaged in criminal activity.

WASHINGTON -- The number of immigrants deported from the country decreased this year for the first time since President Obama came into office, according to figures released Thursday. The decline came largely because of changes in administration policy over the last two years, particularly the move to give higher priority to deporting immigrants with criminal records, said immigration officials. Finding and removing criminals in the country without visas takes longer than deportations in non-criminal cases, they noted.

SACRAMENTO - The state Senate on Thursday approved a bill that would reduce the maximum possible misdemeanor sentence from one year to 364 days, to reduce deportations of legal residents for minor crimes. The bill addresses concern that federal law allows legal immigrants to be deported if they are convicted of a crime and given a one-year sentence. Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) said his bill would prevent families from being torn apart if one member commits a crime that is not a felony, such as writing a bad check.

President Obama told a heckler who interrupted a speech on immigration Monday that he will not circumvent Congress and try to halt deportations by executive order because the U.S. is “a nation of laws.” “Please use your executive order!” shouted the heckler, who was standing behind Obama onstage, close enough to be in the television camera shot during an event in San Francisco's Chinatown. Urging the president to give immediate relief to those separated from their families at Thanksgiving, he yelled, “You have the power to stop deportations!